Having just finished Mark Whittow's: The Making of orthodox Byzantium, I started thinking about his last chapter.

In it he tells us that Basil II ended the age of reconquest of the eastern terratories to reduce the power of the powerful eastern military families and to consodilate the hold on the newly aquired teratories conquered by his (eastern family) precessors. The eastern families started relying on themselves rather then on Constantinople (which had always been the case before) which ofcourse threatened the intergraty of the empire. This was because the new economic possibilties were opened with the reconquest which were more easily exploited by the families, than by Constantinople.

Basil II had to fight 2 civil wars to keep his throne against the military families because they wanted their own Emperors on the throne. My question is what if the eastern families had won one of the civil wars? The reconquest wouldn't have been halted, so there is almost no telling how far the eastern families could have come because the muslim world was far top divided to give a fight (except maybe the Fatamids). Mosul, Allepo, Tripoli we're all easy next targets, and maybe even after that Bagdad or Samara?

On the flip side, what if Basil had it right? Political life would no longer have been centred on only Constantinople, and this had always been the Empire's survival. If this had stopped being the case a break up of the empire would have been far more likely.

IMHO these arn't unlikely fantasies, and I'm looking forward on other peoples views.